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Monday, May 09, 2016

A vilanelle?

Today I completed the second of three poems I'm required to submit as part of the assessed work for my creative writing course at the ANU. We're asked to submit a free-verse poem and two others with more traditional, formal structures such as a vilanelle or sonnet. I finished and submitted the first, my vilanelle, this morning.  It's called Custodians, and this is how it starts:

Tomorrow is not ours to lose but keep, 
To hold, protect, and save from foolish men
So no dark days may make our children weep.

We shall see what they think.

Dylan Thomas
Source: University of Buffalo
And here - because one can - is the most famous vilanelle ever written. Thank you Dylan Thomas. The rest of us know how high we need to aim.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

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